Assuming the salary cap is engraved in stone, should the NHL and NHLPA consider a version of the Larry Bird Exception in the next CBA?

From our perspective, the answer is yes. While a Bird Exception would soften what is, basically, the NHL’s hard cap, it also would mitigate the single worst consequence of the post-lockout cap: the inability of good teams to stay together. (The Larry Bird Exception allows NBA teams to re-sign their own free agents; to be eligible, a player cannot have changed teams as a free agent in three seasons.)...

Chicago reached elite status through bumbling—high draft choices allowed it to pick Captain Serious and Killer Kane—but Detroit did it on sheer brainpower. Still, GM Ken Holland has been forced to lose important players because of the cap, including Marian Hossa to the Hawks. Hossa would not have qualified as a Larry Bird Exception because he had jumped to the Red Wings as a free agent from Pittsburgh, but that’s beside the point. The point is: some kind of exemption for a homegrown player might allow a Pittsburgh or Washington to become a true circus team, one of those must-see squads of an earlier era that can dominate for half a decade.

In case you missed it, here’s what Blues goaltender Chris Mason said following Thursday’s 3-2 loss to Nashville.

“I’m definitely not going to single anybody out, but some guys showed up and worked as hard as they could and some guys didn’t,” Mason said. ”When you’re in a desperate situation like we are, we need everybody to come and compete, and we didn’t have that.”

TORONTO (April 2, 2010) – Atlanta Thrashers forward Colby Armstrong has been suspended for two games, without pay, for using his elbow to deliver a blow to the head of Washington Capitals forward Mathieu Perreault in NHL game #1152 last night.

Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and based on his average annual salary, Armstrong will forfeit $24,870.47. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

Armstrong was assessed no penalty for the hit, which occurred 12:40 into the second period. Perreault was injured on the play but returned later in the game.

I do not like most of the popular front runners for the Selke Trophy this year. Many people support Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings. He won the award for the last two years. I did not support Datsyuk last year because he isn’t played often enough in defensive situations. Datsyuk has only played 59 minutes shorthanded so far this year. It is a drop by about 50% on last year and last year’s total was unreasonably low for a Selke Trophy winner. The other top popular Selke candidates are people who played strong defensive roles in the Olympics (which will impact the NHL awards - even though they shouldn’t). There is Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks who played a strong defensive role for the US Olympic Team and Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks who played a strong defensive role for the Canadian Olympic Team. Kesler is generally considered the better candidate as he was a Selke Trophy nominee last year.

The Colorado Avalanche are, at present, doing a pretty canny impersonation of the Wicked Witch of the West doused by a bucket of water.

“I’m melting!

Not that these 60-65 minutes tonight, which will either bring the resurgent Calgary Flames even at 89 points or nose the Avalanche three to four in front, are necessarily definitive. The Flames, remember, were being fitted for toe tags, readied for shipment to the morgue, as recently as Saturday.

They looked to be beyond salvation, to have mentally closed up shop then, as the Avs do now.

Things, we’ve learned, can change quickly in this compelling, if quirky, potato-sack race to cross the Western Conference finish line eighth.

The quality of hockey is much better than I had been led to believe. I’m not a fan of the international ice surface, but if you removed the team jerseys in the one playoff game I saw in person, you’d have thought you were watching two NHL teams (I watched a couple other games on TV, and both were very good). There is more clutching and grabbing, fewer dump-ins, and thousands of drop-passes in the neutral zone that would get you choked by an NHL coach. But there was plenty of hitting and some very aggressive play. It’s also a real skater’s league.

I loved - absolutely loved - that the KHL adopted sudden-death overtime in the post-season. No shootouts when it matters. Nothing like watching a triple-OT game in late March to get me ready for the NHL playoffs.

Most North Americans who played and coached there really enjoyed the experience. Barry Smith would like to brief the NHL GMs about the KHL and why there needs to be a deal with the Russian league. His is a good perspective.

Spend any amount of time around the Phoenix Coyotes these days; watch how everybody interacts – coaches, players and staff – and it becomes clear why they are the surprise story of the NHL season.

It is a smart, experienced group, on the ice and behind the bench, where a quintet of coaches (Dave Tippett along with assistants Dave King, Ulf Samuelsson, Doug Sulliman and Sean Burke), all possess a keen sense of what works and what doesn’t in today’s NHL….

“We’re hard to play against because we work,” says King, “and in our game today, it’s still an important aspect. Work can take away the edge a team may have in experience or skill.”

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